In just over a year from now, the vast majority of states are planning to transition to Common Core-aligned assessments. This transition is a crucial step in fully implementing the new standards, as these assessments will measure the extent to which students are mastering the content and skills embedded in the standards-something most current state Read more about A Primer on Common Core-Aligned Assessments[…]
A few weeks ago, the state of Florida, while stopping short of withdrawing from participation in Common Core, revoked its participation in PARCC, the joint state-run assessment service employed by many states to assess how students are meeting the demands of the new Common Core curriculum.The Council for Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has responded Read more about Florida withdraws from PARCC; CCSSO responds[…]
As the internationally benchmarked Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are adopted in states across the country, educators are seeking ways to support an increasingly diverse student population to meet these more demanding expectations. The likelihood that students will achieve the aims of the standards will be substantially shaped by how well teachers teach challenging academic Read more about Student Performance Assessments and Teacher Learning[…]
In the continuing era of No Child Left Behind, which calls for verifiable data to be used to make decisions about schools and education policy, standardized tests have become increasingly common for most American schools. With more recent questions about how much these test scores should be used to evaluate teachers as well as the Read more about Conflicting Poll Results Reflect Americans’ Mixed Attitudes on Education[…]
Montgomery County Public Schools, MD, will greet its students this fall with a survey that asks them questions, not about academics, but about “hope, engagement and well-being.” MCPS is teaming up with Gallup, the polling giant, to conduct this survey, which they also conducted last year. For three years of work that includes working with Read more about Montgomery County (MD) Measuring ‘Hope’ to Help Improve Academic Success[…]
The U.S. Department of Education has decided that due to ambitious timelines for the implementation of college and career-ready standards, new assessments aligned with those standards, and new teacher and principal evaluations, states may request waivers to ensure that there is sufficient time to prepare teachers for implementation of the new standards before stakes are Read more about A Waiver from the Waivers[…]
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) announced the award of a contract to develop a Digital Library of formative assessment practices and professional learning resources for educators. Amplify Insight, formerly known as Wireless Generation, will work with Consortium member states and teachers to create professional development materials and instructional resources aligned to the Common Read more about Amplify Insight to Create Digital Library of Common Core Teaching Materials[…]
Michael Hansen of AEI Education, has penned a new report examining teacher evaluations systems. Hansen believes that, whether or not student test scores continue to be demanded as the gold standard for teacher evaluations, data analysis will be the crucial factor in the future of teacher evaluations. As more states and districts have moved to Read more about A Pragmatic Look at the Future of Teacher Evaluation Systems[…]
The Alliance for Excellent Education suggests that New Hampshire’s shift from “seat time” measures of student proficiency to “competency-based learning” measures is one that other states would do well to follow. As this blog wrote about previously, the Carnegie Unit, or credit hour, has long been the measure by which students were judged before they Read more about How should student content mastery be judged?[…]
Since 1906, the Carnegie Unit, or credit hour/student hour, has been the standard unit by which student progress and mastery in American secondary schools and colleges have been measured. The Carnegie Unit was originally created in 1906 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a means by which professors could argue for Read more about Re-thinking the credit hour?[…]
The Governing Board of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) met on September 12, 2012, including a joint session with the PARCC Advisory Committee on College Readiness. The board meets quarterly to make major policy and operational decisions on behalf of the PARCC consortium related to the overall design of Read more about Will PARCC and Smarter Balanced Align?[…]
The teachers’ strike in Chicago has generated considerable interest in the use of test-based measures of teacher effectiveness in personnel decisions. For a clear discussion of the uses, value, and limitations of test-based measures check out the CADLER Conversation on the issue. The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) has Read more about The Debate Over Test-Based Measures of Teacher Effectiveness[…]
Matthew DiCarlo of the Albert Shanker Institute has developed five recommendations for reporters who write stories on state test scores. But these recommendations are not only useful for reporters – educators also would benefit from understanding the nuances of these numbers that are increasingly used to judge worth. 1. Look at both scale scores and Read more about Five Recommendations For Reporting On (Or Just Interpreting) State Test Scores[…]
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) recently released sample assessment items. They come complete with a new way of categorizing questions, both for mathematics — where the questions are of Type I, Type II or Type III — and in ELA, where they are EBSRs, TECRs and PCRs. For a Read more about PARCC Task and Question Types[…]
The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has released a new report focused on parents’ perceptions of assessments: their development, administration, and the use of the resulting data. In For Every Child, Multiple Measures: What Parents and Educators Want from K-12 Assessments, the researchers found that parents, teachers and district administrators hold similar views on their top Read more about For Every Child, Multiple Measures[…]
In a recent commentary for The Huffington Post, Harvard professor Dr. Thomas Payzant focuses attention on how accountability systems for teachers and leaders can be done better in this country. Not only are high-stakes evaluations stressful for superintendents, as illustrated by the high turnover rates around the country, but for students as well, and they Read more about Professor Speaks out against School Accountability Systems[…]